They call it BPM. It used to be called “systems management”. But the term “business systems” got corrupted, and the name changed for clarification. Business Process Management is nothing more than looking for repetitive task sets within a business, and developing a faster, more predictable process for making them more efficient.

BPM analyzes where the greatest time losses are occurring, and devises solutions to speed them up. Sometimes it involves software, sometimes training, sometimes better equipment, different office arrangement, etc.

You can do this in a small business, but you do it a bit differently, and the cost/benefit equations are somewhat different as well. It means looking at how YOU work, and making THAT more efficient. For a small business, standardized solutions may not work, especially if you are carving out a niche that is distinctly different than your competitors.

We realized early on that if we built websites like most designers, that we’d be losing money from the get-go, or we’d price ourselves out of our target market. Neither of those was an option.

Most designers start with a PhotoShop mock-up – a graphical representation of what the website will look like. Then after it has been approved and finalized with the client, they code it into the site.

We’ve built a few sites this way – sometimes it makes sense to do so. But mostly we don’t, because our clients cannot afford the extra hundreds of dollars that this kind of process requires. So we did it differently in order to make it more efficient and cost effective.

We design a header in PhotoShop, and the client approves that. We then discuss how we need the navigation to function. After that, we go straight to coding – of course, we don’t hand-code most sites, we start with a template that is functionally close to what we need. We install that, put in the header, change the colors and accents, tweak the CSS and we are done.

We recently built a design for a new client. We had a basic idea of what she wanted, and the colors she wanted. We were able to go from concept to approved design in about three days. If we had done it with a PhotoShop mockup, we’d still have been three days to the approvals, and then we’d still have had to code the design, which would have been another three to four hours of work to make the necessary changes. That’s a couple hundred dollars more that the client would have to pay, or that we’d lose. Not efficient. As it was, we finished the first portion of the contract in record time, and came out with a comfortable profit from the work.

We looked at what our target market needed. We then looked at the standard way of doing things, and at solutions for speeding that up. They were not sufficient, so we developed our own system for the process. It takes us through it in an organized way, and gets the job done quickly, but in a way that is still personal to the individual business owners.

A good business process can be streamlined in a way that suits your business, and your customers. It will keep the personal interaction that is most important, and systemize the parts that do not need to be personalized.

In our business, every single site install is the same. So we can automate and systemize parts of that.

Site design is personal. So we systemize that ONLY where it won’t affect the personalization of it.

Look at your own business. What are the things you are doing over and over again? How can you speed those up, what tools can you use to make it more efficient, cut out some of the headache, make the results more predictable, etc? And where is personal contact CRITICAL in your business? How will you build systems that protect that essential personal interaction with your customers?

Corporations put a lot of money into better Process Management. You can make many parts of your business flow more smoothly with just a little thought about how you do it, and by obtaining good tools that work for YOUR business. It doesn’t have to be a science of professional specialists. It can be used to benefit any business, at any stage.

When the good things happen, do you give thanks? Do you assume it is purely your charm and magnetism which brings good things into your life?

Are you thankful for the little blessings when you think you need a big one? And whom do you thank when you are giggly with glee over the latest good thing?

Gratitude is not just a means of increasing contentment, it is also a means of increasing the blessings in your life.

In the midst of hardship, we often focus on the negative. But sometimes we forget that while we feel we’ll sink any minute, we don’t sink, and not sinking is a great blessing. It is easier to cry that we didn’t get what we wanted than it is to say thanks because something worse didn’t happen, or to be thankful for pennies when we need dollars.

Every fall I ask for deer or elk. And every fall we get antelope. Antelope stinks, the meet is edible, but not at all tasty. You work just as hard to process an antelope as you do a deer or elk, but you end up with only about 25 lbs of boneless meat, instead of 50 to 100 lbs. That’s a lot of work for very little meat. Then you have to marinate it, and season it highly just to be able to swallow the stuff.

We made jerky one year, and sent some to a friend. He said, “I like it, but if I open the bag the smell of it will drive my wife from the room.” That pretty much describes antelope.

I have had to learn to be thankful for antelope. How can I expect to be blessed with anything better if I am not thankful for the small blessings? And antelope IS a blessing. It keeps food on the table that does not have the chemicals that make me sick. Sure, deer or elk would be MORE of a blessing, but I am happier when I acknowledge that even stinky gamy antelope is a blessing.

When a business contract is signed, a contract phase completed, when the client LIKES the design, when a client is pleased with our work, the credit is not solely ours. Yes, we made choices which contributed to the success, but a measure of it goes to the Lord. The greater measure, I believe.

Gratitude helps us see what is really there, instead of focusing on the negatives, and it helps us to receive more.

The application in business is directly relevant.

“When you wrestle with a pig, both of you get dirty, but the pig enjoys it.”

Some people like to argue. The truth is twisted, and reality is warped to perpetuate the argument. It isn’t about what is good, true, or sensible. It is about putting down, insulting, and false superiority. Miserable people like to make other people miserable.

There comes a point in an argument when it is time to walk away. When you find that another person is oblivious to reason, and when you start feeling hateful toward them, it is time to back out gracefully. It is not necessary to “win”.

Often, leaving is the best choice – it says, unmistakably, “You will not control me.”

When another person is there for control, and for ugliness, they’ll enjoy the conflict, for the sake of conflict. There is no winning against that, because the goal is not to exchange, it is to control.

I’ve encountered this in networking, in business situations, and in family. Learning to walk away was very hard – and I still struggle with it. My mind engages with a good debate. But when it makes me want to win at all costs, I leave – because I do not want to become the other person.

I don’t need to get dirty.

I take challenges because even when I’m not 100% sure how to do something, I know I can probably figure it out. Experience has taught me that. Oh, I don’t take credit for that – I know that to be a blessing from the Lord, and give Him credit in it.

But it isn’t arrogance that makes me believe I can take on certain challenges and succeed. Arrogance would have me believe I could do anything at all, regardless of my own limitations. Confidence acknowledges the limitations realistically, and stretches amazingly within them.

I’ll never be a coder. It isn’t a LACK of confidence that persuades me of that, it is a knowledge that my strengths simply lie elsewhere. I’ll never play the piano either – again, my strengths do not lie in the realm of playing more than one note at a time!

I think that someone with confidence can view their limits realistically, and go forward to accomplish the things they need to accomplish, and much more. They take their strengths and magnify them into something amazing. The limitations do not hold them back, because they don’t waste time focusing on them. They are identified accurately, and then the person moves on to work around them.

Could I learn coding? Probably. I’d spend years just mastering the basics that someone who is gifted in that area could grasp in a day. That is not a worthwhile expenditure of my time! I have better things to do!

As it is, within my business, I know I am always capable of just a little more than I am doing now. I am not pompous about that, I just know that if I ask, I’ll learn, and the Lord will bless me in that effort.

It is a good place to be – it opens endless possiblities for challenge and success. And I like that!

I often talk about the importance of loving your work. But it does not mean you love every single bit of it, and you don’t have to in order to be happy doing it.

• Probably 10 to 20 percent of it is stuff you just look forward to doing, and that is the part that gets you up in the morning excited to go to work.
• Another 60 to 80 percentage is just stuff. Ok, part of your competency, part of the day, and tasks that are neither exciting, nor dreadful. Just there.
• The remaining 10 to 20 percent is stuff you dread, and do not want to have to do. You do it, because the part that you love makes it worth it to do the part you don’t love. Of course, this is the part we hire out to others as soon as we can!

I think that this concept is one that is misunderstood in many directions. Some people don’t realize the importance of finding a business that fills the hidden corners of their heart. But others get confused and think it all has to be fun and exciting. Either extreme is untrue.

Often, what makes me love what I do isn’t even the tasks themselves. It is what we accomplish. It has meaning, and it is worth doing. That is what makes the exciting parts that way, and it keeps me going when I have to face tasks that I dislike.

If I had the money to stop working tomorrow, I would not. I’d keep it up. I’d probably hire out some of the less interesting things, and many of the things I dislike doing, but I’d keep at it, because I truly love what I do.

When you find something you can feel that way about, you got the right thing.

What they say about you has a lot more power than what you say about you.

The real power in networking connections is when they help you. But that isn’t something you can directly control. It is only something you can inspire.

When someone else says something about you, it carries more weight than when you say the same thing. People will help you promote your business for the following reasons:

1. They have reason to believe that you are a nice person. They don’t believe that because you SAID it, they believe that because of what you DO.
2. They think you know your stuff and can really help someone. They don’t think that because you told them, they think that because of what you teach, and because of the kind of help you offer, or by how you do business.
3. They feel that something you offer has value for other people. Often this is a free resource that is so good they want to share it.
4. You made a difference in their life for the better. This also takes more than words.

Are we seeing a pattern here? Other people help promote you when you help them, and when you give them something good.

All comes back to the word, “give”. It doesn’t happen from advertising, and it doesn’t happen from saying things about yourself.

It is powerful precisely because you cannot directly control it. But you can set out to inspire it, and if you give because you love people, it will come back in surprising ways. When it does, you know you got it right!

All we needed was for them to send us another blue card – the one that you put in with your pay stubs. The only number my husband could find was for the National SSI number. He called. The conversation went something like this:

“Blather, blather, blather economic stimulus checks, blather blather” as he listened to two minutes of recorded messages.

Followed by a computer which said, “Please tell us what you need.”

“Help with my son’s Social Security.”

“I’m sorry, we can’t understand what you need. Please tell us what you need.”

“Help.”

“Please tell us what you would like help with.”

The thing cannot understand more than two words strung together, or, apparently, it only understands the right keywords in the right order, spoken with the right accent.

Brilliant! The government no longer needs to staff offices full of support personnel because you cannot get past the automated system! They have devised the perfect method of making it LOOK like they are trying, while in fact, completely avoiding anything useful, and the best part is, they can blame it on YOU!

Since people hate the government anyway, they have nothing to lose!

Over the last few years we’ve periodically donated services where we felt there was both a need, and the motivation on the part of the recipient to make something of it. I’m not big on handouts in the business world where the person will just take it and expect you to do the rest for them as well.

Recently I made an arrangement with a new acquaintance. I’d spoke with her enough, and seen enough about how she was pursuing her business, to know that she was a good candidate to make an offer to. It is a good arrangement, I get something, she gets something. It brought to my attention the fact that I do have the time to do that kind of thing on a regular basis.

I believe in giving back, and in helping people get a hand up. It has been part of our long term plans to give where we can, as our situation improves. I’m not sure how much it has improved, but I feel the time is right for us to start a grant program. Details are not yet released, the site is under construction, and the great unveiling will take place sometime before September 1.

It is no small undertaking, the commitment is huge. But it is something I feel we need to do. I’m looking forward to getting that off the ground, it carries with it a sense of excitement sort of like Christmas when you’ve got a surprise for someone else.

I’ve made it a point to keep my sites family friendly. There are people who dislike this, especially when they discover what my definition actually is.

A new member of our networking site complimented me on this recently though, and it is for people like this that I do it. Because I want to provide a safe haven for people who want to get away from it, and feel comfortable associating with people without felling like they’ll stumble over something offensive whenever they click a link.

Most of my sites that other people can contribute to are set up to promote businesses. I do not feel right about setting up a site to promote things which I believe harm our society. So family friendliness becomes the standard by which I measure what I will or will not promote.

I use the same standard in the services I provide. I cannot help a site owner promote things that I feel harm other people. From an artistic standpoint, I’d not do a good job at promoting that which I do not identify with anyway!

As time goes on, I’m put in a position of having to really define what it means to me, and where, exactly, I’ll draw the line. Because it seems that every nuance of it is tested, eventually. That is how business is. Ethics and standards are tested in ways we never think they will be. And often it is not black and white, but many shades of gray, and we have to consider all sides – and determine just how dark we let gray get before it is classed as black.

One of the harder issues in ethics – because the responses must be entirely personal. And so then, is the test.

Ok, I’m going to have to explain that before I get cries of outrage. With marketing, there are general guidelines, and rules about what good marketing is. But there are no “systems” that can be applied to every business that will work without alteration or adaptation. Anyone who tells you otherwise is either ignorant, or not being completely honest with you. And I expect I’ll still hear cries of outrage over having said THAT!

Those who sell systems want you to think that there is some magic formula. There isn’t. Marketing always takes thought, individualization, and a certain degree of experimentation. Experience can greatly reduce the amount of trial and error, but cannot completely eliminate it. A high budget can also reduce the degree of trial and error, but again, cannot eliminate it. Marketing is always an elegant dance that is half skill, half intuitive art.

Marketing is also not simple. It CAN be learned, and it CAN be broken down into understandable bites. But there are always nuances, and flair that can only be learned with practice.

What the systems cannot do, that they imply they can, is to give you a “do this, get this” roadmap. There is no system that always works. The claims that the seller makes are meaningless – because a marketing plan that works for one business will utterly fail for another, and may not even work for an identical business! A successful marketing plan has to consider many factors, each of which is highly individual for the business in question, and which, combined, equal a combination of factors that no other business shares. This means marketing can never be absolutely quantified.

You’ll need to take many things into consideration:

• Your product or service
• Your average target market
• Your own strengths and weaknesses
• Your skills and knowledge
• Your own preferences and business style
• Your branding (existing or not)
• Your long term goals and expectations
• Your overall business plan
• Your profit and price breakpoints
• Your financial budget
• Your available time
• Your existing sphere of influence
• Your existing customer base
• Previous efforts
• Existing performance data
• Your available support and resource personnel (who can you turn to for help)
• Condition of existing marketing assets

You can see, by the time you go over all that, no two businesses will be identical. And the strengths and limitations you will be functioning under will be highly individualized, and sometimes very personal. Marketing counsel which does not take those factors into consideration just won’t be effective – it will fail from the outset because it was not designed to work within the reality of your business.

Can I hand you a system to market your business successfully? No. Can I teach you to market? Yes. IF you are able and willing to learn, and IF you are willing to practice and adapt. Even after you learn the basics, you have to go on learning, because marketing changes some over time, your business and variables change over time, and society around you changes. Even when you are good at it, you still have to constantly adapt and learn.

So instead of looking for a system, look for help in learning the rules so you can develop your own system that works for your business. Our next blog post will cover more about what systems REALLY are, and how you develop one.